Posted on 04/03/2005 4:15:09 AM PDT by KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle
Anyone would think it was the Republicans who'd lost the 2004 elections, and the 2002 elections, and the 2000 elections. From every corner, concerned "friends" of the party rise to offer "friendly" advice. Norman Lear, who produced all those critically acclaimed issue-confronting heroine-gets-an-abortion '70s sitcoms that seem a lot more dated than ''The Beverly Hillbillies'' these days, has now produced a People For the American Way ad in which a man who identifies himself as a "common sense Republican" objects to any attempt to end the Democratic filibuster of Bush's judicial nominees. As things turn out, the "common sense Republican" has so much common sense he's an official with a union that endorsed John Kerry.
Then there's the 59 striped-pants colossi of the Nixon-Ford-Reagan State Department who've sent a letter to the Senate calling on them to reject John Bolton's nomination as U.N. ambassador. According to the Associated Press report, the signatories include:
"Princeton Lyman, ambassador to South Africa and Nigeria under Presidents Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton; Monteagle Stearns, ambassador to Greece and Ivory Coast in the Ford, Carter and Reagan administrations; and Spurgeon Keeny Jr., deputy director of the Arms Control Agency in the Carter administration."
Princeton Lyman? Monteagle Stearns? Spurgeon Keeny Jr.? If Norman Lear's shows had wacky characters like that, they'd still be in syndication. It's a good rule of thumb that anything 59 economists, bureaucrats or diplomats are prepared to sign an open letter objecting to is by definition a good thing. But that goes double when the 59 panjandrums lined up against you are Princeton Monteagle Jr., President Nixon's ambassador to the Spurgeon Islands; Spurgeon Monkfish III, President Ford's ambassador to the Lyman Islands; Dartmouth Monticello IV, President Johnson's personal emissary to His Serene Highness the Monteagle of Keeny; Columbia Long-Playing-Album, the first diplomat to be named by President Carter to the State Department's Name Control Agency; and Vasser Peachy-Keeny, the first woman to be named Vasser Peachy-Keeny. One sees their point, of course: Let a fellow called "John" Bolton become ambassador and next thing you know Earl and Bud will want the gig.
Even Sen. John Danforth, who should know better, got in on the act, taking half a page in the New York Times to give the Full Monteagle to the "religious right." Blog maestro Andrew Sullivan decided that America was witnessing a "conservative crack-up" over Terri Schiavo and the embrace of her cause by extreme right wing fundamentalist theocrat zealots like, er, Jesse Jackson and Ralph Nader. Sullivan was last predicting a "conservative crack-up" during the impeachment era, on the grounds (if I recall correctly) that Republican moralizing would dramatically cut into Strom Thurmond's share of the gay vote. In the '90s, the Weekly Standard ran innumerable special editions devoted to the subject: Conservative Crack-Up; Conservative Crack-Up 2; Conservative Crack-Up -- The Musical; Abbott And Costello Meet The Conservative Crack-Up; Conservative Crack-Up On Elm Street; Four Weddings And A Conservative Crack-Up; Rod Stewart Sings Timeless Favorites From The Great Conservative Crack-Up, etc.
The point to bear in mind when Hollywood producers, State Department diplomats, respected senators, gay mavericks, the New York Times and the rest of the media offer conservatives advice is a simple one: As that great self-esteem volume has it, He's Really Not That Into You. The preferred media Republican is an amiable loser: the ne plus ultra of GOP candidates was the late Fred Tuttle, the lame, wizened idiot dairy farmer put up for a joke against Sen. Patrick Leahy in Vermont. But, if they can't get that lucky, the media will gladly take a Bob Dole type, a decent old no-hoper who goes down to predictable defeat and gets rave reviews for being such a good loser. Republicans could well run into trouble in 2006 and 2008, but for being insufficiently conservative on things like immigration rather than for anything the media claim they're cracking up over.
The notion, for example, that poor Terri Schiavo will cost Republicans votes in a year and a half's time is ludicrous. The best distillation of the pro-Schiavo case was made by James Lileks, the bard of Minnesota, responding to the provocateur Christopher Hitchens' dismissal of her as a "non-human entity." "It is not wise," wrote Lileks, "to call people dead before they are actually, well, dead. You can be 'as good as dead' or 'brain dead' or 'close to death,' but if the heart beats and the chest rises, I think we should balk at saying this constitutes dead, period."
Just so. Once you get used to designating living, breathing bodies as "non-human entities," it's easy to bandy them ever more carelessly -- as they do in the eminently progressive Netherlands, where their relaxed attitude to pot and prostitution led to a relaxed attitude to euthanasia which looks like relaxing the Dutch people right out of business. It's all done quietly over there -- no fuss, no publicity; you go in to hospital with a heavy cold and you're carried out by the handles. (By "handles," I mean a coffin, not a ceremonial phalanx of Monteagles and Princetons.) But that's not the American way. This is a legalistic society, where grade schools can't have kids knocking a ball around without getting a gazillion dollars worth of liability insurance. I was in Price Chopper the other day and they had a little basket of Easter samples on display accompanied by a page of full print outlining the various sub-clauses of the company's "tasting policy." That's America. In Holland, you can taste a cookie without signing a legal waiver, and, if you get food poisoning from it, the doctor will discreetly euthanize you to avoid putting your family through the trauma of waiting six hours for the stomach pump to become available. That's not how the American cookie crumbles. Euthanasia here will be a 10-year court culminating in slow-motion public execution played out on the 24-hour cable channels.
The Republicans did the right thing here, and they won't be punished for it by the electors. As with abortion, this will be an issue where the public moves slowly but steadily toward the conservative position: Terri Schiavo's court-ordered death will not be without meaning. As to "crack-ups," that's only a neurotic way of saying that these days most of the intellectual debate is within the right. If, like the Democrats, all you've got are lockstep litmus tests on race and abortion and all the rest, what's to crack up over? You just lose elections every two years, but carry on insisting, as Ted Kennedy does, that you're still the majority party. Ted's quite a large majority just by himself these days, but it's still not enough.
I applaud your intention to cancel your living will.
A living will is a very good way to get substandard care and to die from a non life threatening and temporary medical issue.
I would recommend a health care surrogate. Find somebody with medical knowledge, preferably a nurse. Have an extremely frank discussion with them about your wants.
An informed dispassionate decision maker is preferable to an uninformed passionate one.
That is good advice. Poohbah's opus carried a hard lesson, where he related that DBR's reference to "Christians" was equivalent to endorsing "Christian Identity." Wow. An amazing leap, and could have been prevented with civil dialog, following Bilthedrill's advice.
"Nope, I did not mean any of your mischaracterizations."
They are the FACTS, you want I can take the time to pull then out using "RESEARCH", and I have not mischaracterized anything!
Damned good idea...
"Now, to go find its etymology......."
- Say what?
etymology - the historical roots of the word. Where it comes from, how its usage may have changed through history.
For an excellent example of this, goto OED's WOTD. Select the button for 'etymology'. The OED's WOTD is the best WOTD site out there in my no so humble opinion. I wish I could afford the print edition of the OED.
This guy fits right in with NPR's "undecided voter" who had given $500 to the Kerry campaign.
Unbelievable, you just can't make this stuff up!
Excellent post!
Thank you for your wonderful post! I just love Mark Steyn; he uses words to eviscerate the left and the idiotic. He's once again on the correct side of this issue, and it won't "cost" the GOP votes in 2006 or 2008.
And thanks for the ping, Pokey!
A picture of the WWII secret weapon can be found at http://www.nevilshute.org/DMWD/DMWD_Photos.html
My, you are sensitive. For goodness sake, just tell me what I said that was incorrect.
Did not many of you who "fled" to that thread say that "we were eating our own"? Did not some of you suggest your fears that Tom DeLay's comments about the out of control courts was a bad move and that Republicans would pay in future elections. Of course you did!
Listen, I don't care if you decided to go to that thread or not. That was your thing.
***
I was outside working a while ago thinking about this. I don't know all or anything really that some of you have been called on this "right to life" issue on the Terri threads, and I don't know about all the name calling. You never heard anything like that from me because I don't really think about it. To me this whole Terri matter is just about a girl who went into a hospital long ago and, imo, was treated not as well as she should have been. That is it. Nothing about Nazis, right-to-life, Christianity, or all of those things.
If you can't bear to read a post needling you (post #9), then I feel real sorry for you.
I have never called anyone who thinks that Terri should have gone to the next world any names. That's not my concern or style. For me, the whole matter was only about what I think is a husband who acted much unlike I think I would have.
So ........... please cool it. I thought you were a lot more mellow than you are acting. You are picking on the wrong person, and it is very disappointing, and to be truthful, it is hurtful.
Again, when I first came across your WW-whatever thread, I thought it was cute, I really did not know the significance or need for it. I really still don't, because I never took part in evil nasty comments about someone with an opinion on "right-to-life".
Again, take it easy about that supposed "mockery"............. you guys are "rare birds"................ " very nice rare birds". Now start acting that way to me ........ PLEASE! ;-)
BTTT!
Thanks for the ping, Pokey.
Another great Steyn article.
Steyn is optimistic.
****
When I read Billthedrill's words, it was a beautiful thing. He said it all so well! His advice would save a lot of anger and harsh words here at FR, and isn't that what we all want........... that and an extra hundred grand. ;-)
Please pass that great quote of his around!
Steyn never dissapoints...LOL!
Greer deserves the Bird.
But often enough you can take what a person has typed, peel away most of the deceptive outer layers, and understand the basic meaning of what he has said.
Don't give up. We need you and the battle for this country is occuring in the GOP.
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